Shade
by Isilithix
Summary: Shade...a young man brought into the ANBU for abilities not shown anywhere else in the world. When he is discharged, he has to reintegrate with society...or does he? Has ANBU wrecked his chance for a normal life? Or does he even care? Rated M for gore.


Shade

Prologue

They stood there, watching him as he stood over his latest target, blood splattered against his dark grey chest and mask. In his hands, was a kodachi, red liquid running down the edge of the short blade, letting small drops of blood drop to and staining the ground. It was obvious that neither had taken a life before. Slowly, he let go of the kodachi with his left hand and tucked it into the cavity of his chest piece and produced a cloth. Using it, he gently wiped the blood off of his blade before lowering it and replacing it back in its scabbard. Slowly, he turned around to look at the younger two shinobi and the Jounin leader who had been assigned to teach them the ways of the ninja.

The ways of the ninja…_Bah!_ They were taught children's' tricks. If they were real ninja, being taught the _real_ ninja ways, they wouldn't be staring at him with a deer-in-the torch light expression

Behind them was their temporary employer, who looked as if he had just seen a ghost. His face, even through its drunken reddened hue, paled considerably. He slowly brought his left hand to his head and yanked the hat he was wearing over his face, showing only his trebling mouth. It was obvious that he was trying not to barf.

For a moment, nothing happened. One could almost hear the breathing of the drunken man and his teammates. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw his Jounin-Sensei reaching for a kunai. Casting a glance out of his left eye, he saw the other one, the other assassin barreling towards him, poisoned claw poised and ready to cut him down.

His leg muscles tensed as he squatted slightly, his right hand wrapped around the pummel of his kodachi and his left hand closing into a loose fist. His left arm bent and at the ready, he waited. He let his opponents come to him, not the other way around. Seeing the Jounin preparing to throw his kunai, he looked at the assassin again and took a shallow breath. As the man came closer and closer, he slowly let his muscles tighten. The clawed assassin was almost upon him, and the Jounin was in the middle of throwing his kunai, the assassin spotted the kunai and slowed his charge by a small minute amount.

_Shick!_

A rainbow of red flew through the air as the assassins head was cut off at the neck.

_Thunk!_

The Jounin's kunai imbedded deeply into the dead assassin's torso.

He looked forward, past the dead man's falling body, kodachi still out in the open, red liquid running down towards the pummel and his hand. Just like before, he slowly let up, letting his blade drop before digging into his chest piece for a the cloth. Just like before, he slowly wiped the blood off his weapon. The silent air was suddenly filled with the sounds of two people vomiting, a sigh and a growl. But he paid no heed to it, he continued to wipe the blood of his blade, before placing it back in its scabbard.

As the sounds of vomiting began to quiet, the Jounin cleared his throat. "I see why the Hokage assigned you to come with us. Your skills were not as farfetched as I thought they were. Good job, Naruto-Kun."

"I told you, I prefer to be called, 'Shade'."

Some people called him silly to keep such a name after being out of the ANBU for 2 years, but it was what he was called for the 4 years he had been in ANBU. It was more so his name than his birth name. After all, Uzumaki Naruto was a scared little boy who had accidentally murdered a man while trying to run away from him. 'Shade' was the last thing his victims saw while he was in ANBU. A dark dressed young man with a small blade, usually a kodachi; and near un-block able attack.

Uzumaki Naruto remembered the faces of his victims… 'Shade' did not.

End Prologue

This is a pilot for a new story I have been brooding on. Yeah, brooding. There haven't been a lot of good things going for me the last couple of months. Can't find a job, an Addon I downloaded for my WOW account screwed it up royally; having to uninstall and find all files with WOW or Blizzard in the name and erasing them so I can reinstall. School is boring…too boring. One of my friends is going through a huge mess at home and was thinking about killing herself. I talked her out of it, but still…things like that weigh heavily on the brain.

One of the things that's been pissing me off, is the fact that I can't think of how to start the second chapter of _Kitty_. I have tried about 6-8 times and nothing seems to click. _TMGR_ isn't going so good either. I can't think of how to end the 1st chapter of the re-write, and on top of that, my brain has decided that it wants to change the way the whole story is supposed to go. I don't know what to do.

Alright, because I know someone is going to ask me does Naruto have a bloodline, I will answer you. Yes. Yes he does. And though some of you might think that I ripped the idea for it from the Yondaime and the hundreds of stories where he has the same abilities as his father, I will tell you that the idea for his bloodline came from Samurai Warriors 2. If you haven't played the game, then I'm sure you can watch a video of it on Youtube. What it is exactly I will explain later on in the story.

Pairings…the dreaded pairings… At the moment, there isn't any planned. But because someone might ask, even though if they would go to my profile, they could have their answer answered easier than asking me. There will be no yaoi in this story. There will be no yaoi in any of my stories. Please, do not ask about it, because I will tell you to read this section again.

Last minute things. I have been re-reading some of my earlier work, and I don't like that I spotted so many errors. The ones I don't plan on continuing I don't really care about, but the stories that have been popping into my mind once in a while, I may do something about later.

Anyways, thanks for reading, and have a good day/night/week/month/year.


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